Friday, January 26, 2007

Sony: Completely Out of Touch

Take a look at this article, featuring an interview with Sony's Jack Tretton. The date stamp on it says "January 23," and I assume that's from 2007. But Tretton's description of the marketplace sounds like it's from January 2006. In the course of ruling out a PS3 price drop until 2008, Tretton says:

Tretton also stated that demand for the PS3 means that consumers will be willing to pay over the odds at launch.

“I think the consumers that get their hands on a PlayStation 3 clearly see the value and not only want to buy one for $599, in some instances they’re willing to pay ridiculous prices on eBay,” he said.

Here's the PS3 eBay page. First, note that there's a ton of inventory. Next, observe that there are indeed a lot of sellers asking ridiculous prices, but not a lot of buyers at those levels. The action seems to be on the many, many units which are selling below MSRP.